Raised Bed Gardening

Don K · April 14, 2010, 09:17:52 PM

Here are a few pics to motivate you Glenn. I finally got a few to post.

Two beds of English peas and lettuce.

Some lettuces. So much better than that stuff from the store.

Mixed lettuce.

I have two tomato beds like this.

As if I didn't have enough to do, the wife and I are venturing down a new food avenue.

We are picking up two nucs of bees May 1st. I hope this is a successful venture for us. It looks like tough but enjoyable work. I will tell about the bees in another thread when we get them.

Don

zopi · April 14, 2010, 10:10:22 PM

No raised beds..but the garden is up to about 3/8th of an acre...Potatoes, five or six breeds of beans, five breeds of pumpkin (Atlantic giant included) several different lettuces, collards, this spring's cabbage last winters cabbage, spinach, watermelon, four kinds of cucumber, three kinds of summer squash, artichokes, beets, radish, two types of onion, three types of gourd, broccoli, brussels sprouts, artichokes (like that's gonna work) eggplant, three kinds of peppers, and of course tomatoes....

so far..more to come.

SwampDonkey · April 15, 2010, 04:09:03 AM

Don, when do you find time to sleep? Those beds looks like they're doing real well. The bees should love their new home to.

I won't be sticking nothing in the ground until June. :-\ It's an early spring and dry, but the ground ain't warm enough for vegetables and we still get frost down in the high 20's at night or around 32F some nights.

Zopi, you got more stuff than a grocery store. ;D

fishpharmer · April 15, 2010, 04:52:15 AM

Don your an inspiration with your nice looking raised beds. Did you make the beehives? They look good.

Don K · April 15, 2010, 05:45:52 AM

Donk, I find I never get enough sleep. I am in the first week of a 22 day marathon of 12hr shifts and if I am lucky I might get 6 hrs a night at the most. More like 4 hrs but hey if I don't slow down, the moss won't have time to grow. ;D

James, those are bought hives but I did make the cedar stands to get them off the ground. I am seriously considering making my own boxes as they are simple box joint joinery made from 3/4 pine or cypress. One box will set you back for $10 to $15. Incentive to make my own. ;) I need to find a couple of good cypress logs as it is lighter than pine and when a super gets full of honey it could weigh close to 80 or 100 pounds.

Don

SwampDonkey · April 15, 2010, 05:53:21 AM

As they say, can't keep a good man down. ;) I've done them 22 day shifts straight to, (seemed like 16 hour days though and paid for 8 :D ) in the remote bush on the west coast, so I know. ;D

I know someone with a great big old cypress stick in the back yard. ;D

Mooseherder · April 15, 2010, 07:15:05 AM

Don, You've been a very busy man!
It did motivate me, Looking real good over there! 8)
I have the seed and know if I begin, the rest will be easy.

WDH · April 15, 2010, 08:53:19 AM

I planted my garden last weekend. It has turned dry here, which is a big change from the monsoons. Funny how wet it was in the off season and now that it is time to till and plant the garden, the dust is flying ???.

Patty · April 15, 2010, 11:31:18 AM

Wow! Your gardens are truly an inspiration Don, they are just beautiful! As a gardener myself, I know how much work you have put into these, and boy does it show.

Mine look pretty meager now, I guess I need to get to work..

Good Job!

zopi · April 15, 2010, 08:39:55 PM

Quote from: SwampDonkey on April 15, 2010, 04:09:03 AM
Don, when do you find time to sleep? Those beds looks like they're doing real well. The bees should love their new home to.

I won't be sticking nothing in the ground until June. :-\ It's an early spring and dry, but the ground ain't warm enough for vegetables and we still get frost down in the high 20's at night or around 32F some nights.

Zopi, you got more stuff than a grocery store. ;D

Add a row of french salad greens, and rhubarb...yeah..we grow alot...If you've ever left a bag of squash on someone's doorstep, knocked and run away..you might be a gardener...

1st year I've gotten Atlantic Giant pumpkins to grow...

SwampDonkey · April 15, 2010, 09:03:38 PM

rhubarb grows around these parts like burdocks. I have a patch over 100 years old and the neighbors planted about , well... a very big garden of it. Uncle grows a few clumps to and the only ones that use it are the local natives, they like it raw with sugar on it. ;D

Roxie · April 15, 2010, 09:42:37 PM

Zopi, those Atlantic Pumpkins are really fun. We grew one up to 600 lbs in 2008. We lost our vines to the excess rain of 2009. Be sure to sterilize your scissors when you cut the vine or extra pumpkins off. Keep us posted on your progress!

zopi · April 16, 2010, 06:21:30 PM

Roxie..that is probably good advice..I had not thought of it..I'll keep a commentary up..one of the few things we get to do together is gardening...

I'm gonna chop up a bicycle in the next week or so and turn it into a high wheel cultivator...much better than hoeing..

Although, I AM a pretty good hoer....

Roxie · April 17, 2010, 04:17:20 PM

Please pardon the interuption, but this looks like a good place to ask....we got one of those Hav-A-Hart traps trying to catch a ground hog. We tried apple and nothing. So we tried corn, and we got a coon. Boy was he mad. Has anyone here had luck baiting a groundhog? If so, what did you use?

I know a bullet would be quicker, and normally that would be our response, but this one has positioned himself in direct line with the neighbors house. Also, our neighbor across the street has one behind the bushes in the front of his house, with the tunnel going against his foundation.

Please, resume planting....

stonebroke · April 17, 2010, 05:07:39 PM

It is hard to catch a ground hog in a havahart. I did. You have to put it in a place and block up all around it so he has to go in. As I said it is not easy but with persistence and some luck it is possible.

Stonebroke

zopi · April 17, 2010, 06:20:58 PM

Fill in one hole...back the truck up to the other..run a hose down the hole, the other end on the exhaust....let it run for awhile...groundhog goes to sleep and no carcass to cope with...

unlike that skunk I shot out of the chickens the other day...

SwampDonkey · April 17, 2010, 08:05:02 PM

Have you tried home made box traps? I trap squirrels that way and rub an apple on the cage wire as well as place one inside. Make sure the wood of the box inside is lined with wire or the critters chew out, got sharp buck teeth. ;D I would use a carrot for a ground pig. Just rub a carrot on the wire to scent it up and put one inside. Place by hole. A coon probably won't bother a carrot. Toss a piece of raw cabbage in to. ;D If you think you can catch one of them pigs, with him cornered away from his hole, he can climb like a coon. ;D

Norm · April 18, 2010, 07:51:36 AM

They are tough to catch in a box trap Roxie. I use a foothold but only if it's where a dog or cat won't get caught accidentally.

Roxie · April 18, 2010, 08:57:16 AM

The area is right on the property line between us and a neighbor who happens to have three young children, in addition to the fact that CB's cat is out most of the day. We're gonna try the live catch trap for a week, and if that doesn't work, we'll gas the hole.

zopi · April 18, 2010, 12:58:43 PM

's funny...there was an old whistle pig living here when we bought the place...lady said she had a deal with the 'hog, he didn't get into her gardens and she didn't shoot him...I don't do squatters...the dust hadn't settled in the drive from them leaving...<CRACK!> No more whistle pig...

Gonna have to water the garden in a bit...I hope this summer isn't going to be this dry....

Mooseherder · April 22, 2010, 07:41:54 PM

It's a good thing I'm not a Pineapple farmer cause we would starve.
I don't know the exact date we planted this Pineapple top we sliced off a Store bought Pineapple but I think it is over a year ago. It's about the size of a Coke Can, maybe a lil' fatter. My wife stuck her finger in the picture for scale. :D

SwampDonkey · April 22, 2010, 07:43:55 PM

:D :D :D How long does it take to grow'm? I suppose there is a reason they come from Costa Rica and Hawaii. Must be the volcanic soil. Maybe you'll have better luck on Iceland. :D

SwampDonkey · June 05, 2010, 10:05:16 AM

Well this year I waited until June to put the garden in. The old saying in these parts is a June garden will be as good as any planted early subjected to cold nights and possible frost. ;D

I will have to see in a couple weeks how things come along this year. As you remember i burnt the garden up with borax that summer. :D I have a lot of vegetables inter planted and won't remember what is where until in breaks ground. ;D I have parsnip in flower, so I broke the flower tops off, hopefully they won't go woody.

Just got it in and got the mowing done this morning before the big rain set in.

Got a nice pork roast with veggies cooked in with it coming along for dinner.

This is only the first week of June and the lilacs and apple blossoms are long gone bye. :/

Norm · June 05, 2010, 11:08:58 AM

We have almost perfect growing weather this year. I moved some things around in the raised beds near the house.

This is a bed of shallots, red onions and some pepper plants mixed in. The peppers will get some room as I use up the onions and shallots.

I grew some spinach and greens in with the herb garden. In a couple of weeks it will be too hot for them so I'll clean it out and add in fresh soil and compost.

Here's a couple of the roses' we grew in big ceramic pots and over wintered in our shop thanks to SD's suggestion. We are just getting the first blooms of the year.